Conclave 1559


Book Description

Intrigue, double-dealing and conspiracy in the Eternal City. 'A fascinating narrative of the intermingling of secular and religious power' New Statesman 'A highly enjoyable and thrilling read... Hollingsworth has peeled back the veil of secrecy surrounding papal conclaves' History Today 'Full of lively detail and colour' Literary Review August 1559. As the long hot Italian summer draws to its close, so does the life of a rigidly orthodox and profoundly unpopular pope. The papacy of Paul IV has seen the establishing of the Roman Inquisition and the Index of Prohibited Books, an unbending refusal to open dialogue with Protestants, and the ghettoization of Rome's Jews. On 5 September 1559, as the great doors of the Vatican's Sala Regia are ceremonially locked, the future of the Catholic Church hangs in the balance. Mary Hollingsworth offers a compelling and sedulously crafted reconstruction of the longest and most taxing of sixteenth-century papal elections. Its crisscrossing fault lines divided not only moderates from conservatives, but also the adherents of three national 'factions' with mutually incompatible interests. France and Spain were both looking to extend their power in Italy and beyond and had very different ideas of who the new pope should be – as did the Italian cardinals. Drawing on the detailed account books left by Ippolito d'Este, one of the participating cardinals, Conclave 1559 provides remarkable insights into the daily lives and concerns of the forty-seven men locked up for some four months in the Vatican.




The Papacy and the Levant, 1204-1571


Book Description




The Vacant See in Early Modern Rome


Book Description

In The Vacant See in Early Modern Rome John M. Hunt offers a social history of the papal interregnum from 1559 to 1655. The study concentrates on the Roman people’s relationship with their sacred ruler. Using criminal sources from the Archivio di Stato di Roma and Vatican sources, Hunt emphasizes the violent and tumultuous nature of the lapse in papal authority that followed the pope’s death. The vacant see was a time in which Romans of modest social backgrounds claimed unprecedented power. From personal acts of revenge to collective protests staged at the Capitol Hill and citywide discussions of the papal election the vacant see provided Romans with a unique opportunity for political involvement in an age of omnipresent hierarchy.







The Invention of Papal History


Book Description

The Catholic Church is among the oldest, most secretive, institutions in the world, but in the sixteenth century a friar, Onofrio Panvinio, undertook ground-breaking investigations into the Church's history from Christ to the Renaissance. This study shows how his writings impacted on church and society, but also how he changed historical writing.




A Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal


Book Description

A Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal is the first comprehensive overview of its subject in English or any language. Cardinals are best known as the pope’s electors, but in the centuries from 1400 to 1800 they were so much more: pastors, inquisitors, diplomats, bureaucrats, statesmen, saints; entrepreneurs and investors; patrons of the arts, of music, literature, and science. Thirty-five essays explain their social background, positions and roles in Rome and beyond, and what they meant for wider society. This volume shows the impact which those men who took up the purple had in their respective fields and how their tenure of office shaped the entangled histories of Rome and the Catholic Church from a European and global perspective.




A Companion to Early Modern Rome, 1492–1692


Book Description

Winner of the 2020 Bainton Prize for Reference Works This volume, edited by Pamela M. Jones, Barbara Wisch, and Simon Ditchfield, focuses on Rome from 1492-1692, an era of striking renewal: demographic, architectural, intellectual, and artistic. Rome’s most distinctive aspects--including its twin governments (civic and papal), unique role as the seat of global Catholicism, disproportionately male population, and status as artistic capital of Europe--are examined from numerous perspectives. This book of 30 chapters, intended for scholars and students across the academy, fills a noteworthy gap in the literature. It is the only multidisciplinary study of 16th- and 17th-century Rome that synthesizes and critiques past and recent scholarship while offering innovative analyses of a wide range of topics and identifying new avenues for research. Committee's statement "The volume includes a multidisciplinary study of early modern Rome by focusing on the 16th and 17th centuries by re-examining traditional topics anew. This volume will be of tremendous use to scholars and students because its focus is very well conceptualized and organized, while still covering a breadth of topics. The authors celebrate Rome’s diversity by exploring its role not only as the seat of the Catholic church, but also as home to large communities of diplomats, printers, and working artisans, all of whom contributed to the city’s visual, material, and musical cultures". Roland H.Bainton Prizes Contributors are: Renata Ago, Elisa Andretta, Katherine Aron-Beller, Lisa Beaven, Eleonora Canepari, Christopher Carlsmith, Patrizia Cavazzini, Elizabeth S. Cohen, Thomas V. Cohen, Jeffrey Collins, Simon Ditchfield, Anna Esposito, Federica Favino, Daniele V. Filippi, Irene Fosi, Kenneth Gouwens, Giuseppe Antonio Guazzelli, John M. Hunt, Pamela M. Jones, Carla Keyvanian, Margaret A. Kuntz, Stephanie C. Leone, Evelyn Lincoln, Jessica Maier, Laurie Nussdorfer, Toby Osborne, Miles Pattenden, Denis Ribouillault, Katherine W. Rinne, Minou Schraven, John Beldon Scott, Barbara Wisch, Arnold A. Witte.




Princes of the Renaissance


Book Description

A vivid history of the lives and times of the aristocratic elite whose patronage created the art and architecture of the Italian Renaissance. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was an era of dramatic political, religious, and cultural change in the Italian peninsula, witnessing major innovations in the visual arts, literature, music, and science. Princes of the Renaissance charts these developments in a sequence of eleven chapters, each of which is devoted to two or three princely characters with a cast of minor ones—from Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, to Cosimo I de' Medici, Duke of Florence, and from Isabella d'Este of Mantua to Lucrezia Borgia. Many of these princes were related by blood or marriage, creating a web of alliances that held Renaissance society together—but whose tensions could spark feuds that threatened to tear it apart. A vivid depiction of the lives and times of the aristocratic elite whose patronage created the art and architecture of the Renaissance, Princes of the Renaissance is a narrative that is as rigorous and definitively researched as it is accessible and entertaining. Perhaps most importantly, Mary Hollingsworth sets the aesthetic achievements of these aristocratic patrons in the context of the volatile, ever-shifting politics of an age of change and innovation.




The History of the Popes


Book Description




The Culture and Politics of Regime Change in Italy, c.1494-c.1559


Book Description

This volume offers the first comprehensive survey of regime change in Italy in the period c.1494–c.1559. Far from being a purely modern phenomenon, regime change was a common feature of life in Renaissance Italy – no more so than during the Italian Wars (1494–1559). During those turbulent years, governments rose and fell with dizzying regularity. Some changes of regime were peaceful; others were more violent. But whenever a new reggimento took power, old social tensions were laid bare and new challenges emerged – any of which could easily threaten its survival. This provoked a variety of responses, both from newly established regimes and from their opponents. Constitutional reforms were proposed and enacted; civic rituals were developed; works of art were commissioned; literary works were penned; and occasionally, aspects of material culture were pressed into service, as well. Comparative in approach and broad in scope, it offers a provocative new view of the diverse political, culture, and economic factors, which ensured the survival (or demise) of regimes – not only in "major" polities like Florence, Rome, and Venice, but also in less-well-studied regions like Savoy. This book will appeal to researchers and students alike interested in cultural, political, and military history.